Companies increasingly adopting pre-assessment tests in hiring process - survey

The survey by Wisdom Jobs looks at reasons why companies use pre-assessments in their hiring process and areas where they are efficacious in assessing job applicants. The last few years have seen pre-assessments or pre-interview testing being increasingly adopted by companies as a means of improving the quality of talent being processed by them and to increase objectivity in their screening and filtering of candidates.

Although initially used by large-sized organizations to simplify their volume hiring, pre-assessments are now being used by companies irrespective of size. Ajay Kolla, Founder & CEO, Wisdomjobs.com, said, "Pre-assessments are useful in making selection decisions by objectively analyzing candidates' decision-making and problem-solving abilities, not only for hiring at the fresher level but also in executive hiring.

A key advantage they bring is their ability to prevent hiring decision-makers from being influenced by the candidate's personality or background." Another factor is that from being mere filtering tools, they have now evolved into a reliable means of gauging candidates' skills, behaviours, motivation, attitudes etc. Surveys carried out by Wisdomjobs.com have revealed the following information about the role of pre-assessments in companies' hiring processes.

Reasons for using pre-assessments; Source: Wisdom Jobs

Over 60% of companies said that avoiding a bad hire is the biggest reason for using pre-assessments; 30% cited an increase in retention, and 10% felt it increases productivity. 20% of the companies have seen an increase in the average tenure of their hires after implementing pre-assessments.

Hiring areas where pre-assessments are used; Source: Wisdom Jobs

45% of recruiters and companies said they use pre-assessments to measure core skills, aptitude and communication skills of candidates. Pre-assessments are used by nearly 40% of them for entry-level roles; by 25% of them for mid-level roles, and around 15% for senior level roles.

55% of the companies said that they are used only to test candidate aptitude and quantitative skills; 30% use it to test communication skills, while around 15% use them to test core skills exclusively. Nearly 45% of companies still use paper-based assessments, while 30% use online pre-assessments.

25% of companies said that they do not specifically evaluate the ROI of pre-assessment-based hiring while nearly 40% said are yet to conduct such evaluations. About Wisdomjobs.com:

Wisdomjobs.com along with its sister portal Wisdomjobsgulf.com are unique, skill-assessment based job portals that help job seekers and employers to find the right fitment through a proprietary skill assessment tool named Pragnya Meter. The tool has, to date, served over 15 million assessments on 4000+ skills. Pragnya Meter serves as a unique online candidate assessment tool to test skill competencies, aptitude, communication skills and coding skills of applicants through a variety of customizable exam patterns.